Lions Gate Becomes Lionsgate

Seeking to create greater brand awareness in the digital age, Lions Gate Entertainment today bowed a new animated logo and changed its corporate name to Lionsgate.

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer, in a presentation at the company's Santa Monica, Calif.-based headquarters, said ongoing changes in the entertainment business required a brand that he characterized as “clean, elegant, simple and befitting the digital age.”

He said the mini-major would generate more than $900 million ($500 million in home entertainment) in 2005 revenues, including sales upwards of 80 million DVD units.

“That's 500 million [new logo] impressions,” said Feltheimer. “Yet I still have the same [old] business card.”

The animated logo will be themed slightly for specific genre films but the name will remain consistent across Lionsgate's seven units, including feature films, home entertainment, family entertainment, television, documentaries, music publishing and video-on-demand.

Feltheimer said the studio had acquired the domain rights to Lionsgate.com and had renamed recently acquired Redbus Film Distribution Limited to Lionsgate UK.

The CEO lauded the double Golden Globe nominations of the studio's critically acclaimed title Crash and said the studio would continue to produce distinctive fare, including upcoming horror thrillers Hostel (produced by Quentin Tarantino), See No Evil and Hard Candy, in addition to such family films as Tyler Perry's Medea's Family Reunion and Akeelah and the Bee.